


When you wake up, you will find me

by MsEllieJane



Series: Lives Intertwined [2]
Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dreamsharing, Eventual Smut, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Magical Realism, Magical technology, Sarek the therapist, Synesthesia, references to the tie-in novel Drastic Measures, what is even reality?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-13
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-03-31 00:28:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13963371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsEllieJane/pseuds/MsEllieJane
Summary: As Katrina struggles to come to terms with loss, her dreams are haunted by a dead man who claims to still be alive.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've been very slowly working on this story since the season finale and I'm so happy to finally share it! Thanks to the lovely [Caressyouintodarkness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/caressyouintodarkness/pseuds/caressyouintodarkness) for the beta read!  
>   
> Title is from the song [Still Life by the Horrors](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtQLi3JSMic)

_She was enveloped in warmth, her eyelids languid as she gazed at the ray of sunlight spilling across the pillow. It took a few moments to realize she wasn’t alone in her bed and a smile spread slowly across her face. This was familiar, this was safe. She wasn’t sure if she was dead or dreaming, but that didn’t matter in the moment. She carefully flipped over to face the sleeping figure that was spooning her._

_She gasped softly to see his face, at once strange and familiar. His expression was soft with sleep and she couldn’t help but reach out and ruffle his hair. He muttered in his sleep and she grinned to herself. This was the man she remembered, before war and loss had changed him into something sinister and unrecognizable. She set aside those particular memories and focused on the slow rise and fall of his breathing._

_“I know you’re staring at me, Kat,” he muttered after a few minutes, eyes still shut._

_“I couldn’t help it,” she paused “I missed you.” With this, she was gifted with the sight of his blue eyes focused intently on her. He reached his arm around her back to pull her closer and she settled into his space, relishing the physical contact._

_“How could you miss me, I’m right here.” She smiled up at him and he softly kissed her forehead. “I’ll always be right here.”_

_As soon has he spoke the words, everything changed. She was suddenly alone and found herself shivering at the loss of his warmth._

_The image in front of her was blurry at first, a swarm of black and grey clouding her vision. Once it came into focus, it was like viewing a stage from the last row of a theater. It was a room, a prison cell, small and sparsely furnished. There was a figure on the shelf-like bed, clad in grey and curled up to face the wall. She tried to approach the scene in front of her but ran into an invisible barrier. It gave a little when she pushed against it, but didn’t budge._

_She saw movement in the scene in front of her as the figure on the bed sat up. She squinted, trying to make out the details. When he turned to face her, she cried out in recognition as pain suddenly shot through her legs. She looked down to see her feet engulfed in flames that slowly crept upwards._

_“Gabriel!!” She shouted at the top of her lungs and pounded against the invisible barrier as the pain crescendoed. She was stuck in place, staring down at her legs in horror as they slowly turned to ash. She looked up once more and screamed as the man in the room finally seemed to hear her. His eyes widened in horror and he ran up to the barrier, pounding against it._

_“Kat!!” There was agony in his voice that pierced her heart as the flames completely engulfed her._

“Fuuuuck!"

She woke up in a sterile white room and her legs were still on fire. A quick glance revealed no actual flames, but the pain licking its way through her bones left her panting in agony.

“Someone please help me!” She looked around helplessly at the readout screens that surrounded her with ringing alarms. She knew her way around medical equipment, but nothing made sense to her in that moment. When white-clad figures finally sprinted into the room, she felt relieved and angry. She shoved her hand against her mouth to keep from screaming.

“Admiral, please stay calm, you are not in any danger. You have been rescued and are receiving medical care on Starbase 80.” That was obvious from the shiny surroundings, the polar opposite of the dark room she was held in for weeks. If she wasn’t in agonizing pain, she would have appreciated the words of reassurance.

“The sedatives wore off early and your spinal implant is still configuring itself to your nervous system. This should take the edge off, but we can’t use heavy painkillers or the nerve mapping won’t work.” The tall man in white pressed a hypo to her neck and the pain quickly dropped from excruciating to moderate. She let out a breath and steadied herself. She could handle this, she had suffered worse at the hands of the Klingons.

“Status report, please.” She eased herself back into authority figure mode, staring down the doctor in front of her as she seperated herself from the pain in her legs.

“You were rescued from the Klingon ship by crewmembers from the Discovery and stabilized by their medical staff.” She knew that part already and waved him on impatiently. “Your broken wrist, clavicle and ribs were healed and you underwent surgery to repair your spinal cord. The damage was extensive and we had to install a spinal implant in your L5 vertebrae.”

She looked down at her needle-filled legs and wiggled her feet. She breathed a sigh of relief, remembering the panic that filled her when she woke up on the _Sarcophagus_ , her legs a dead weight.

“Thank goodness for technology,” she said through gritted teeth. “How long have I been out?”

“You have been in a medical coma for twelve days.” She gasped at that, wondering what she had missed during that time. “In fact, you should still be under right now and we aren’t sure why the anesthesia wore off so early. The repairs have been extensive, but we are happy to say there will be no permanent damage. The spinal implant will take some time to calibrate, but once it does, you should be able to walk normally with minimal rehab.”

“Thank you, all of you” she sighed, and then slipped back into Admiral mode. “Now that I’m awake, please provide me with Starfleet’s status reports for the past twelve days. I will need something to distract myself from this,” she gestured towards her legs, which were twitching and jumping. The medical staff exchanged meaningful looks, which sent a spike of anxiety through her.

“It might be best to wait on the status reports until you are fully healed. Stress to the nervous system can interfere with the mapping process.”

“It’s too late for that I think,” she replied curtly. “I’ll be more stressed the longer I’m in the dark about what’s happened over the past twelve days.” She saw the doctor converse with the rest of the medics in whispers and rolled her eyes. They eventually relented and he made some adjustments to the monitoring equipment before placing a padd in her hands.

“The alarm is set go off if your heart rate goes above resting. If I hear it, I’m taking the padd away and sedating you, got it?” She was simultaneously impressed and annoyed that this doctor had the balls to speak that way to an Admiral, and gave him a curt nod in response.

Once alone, she scrolled through the status reports, looking for news of the cloak-breaking algorithm and the impact it was having. She stopped suddenly, zooming in on the report that was timestamped nine days ago. Her eyes widened as she read and soon after, alarms started blaring all around her.

The doctor strode into the room, ready to make a snide comment, but the words froze in his mouth when he saw the Admiral’s stricken face, horror painted across her features. He grabbed a hypo filled with sedative and moved towards her until she put a hand up to stop him.

“I will let you sedate me once you assure me that as soon as I am able to leave this bed, arrangements will be made to transport me to the debris field where _Discovery_ was destroyed. I know it was already verified, but I need to see it with my own eyes.” The alarms continued to go off around her and her heart was about to leap out of her chest. The doctor paused, looking hesitant. “Did I make myself clear?” she asked, not in the mood to be fucked with. He slowly nodded after a few moments.

“I will make sure it happens,” he said quietly.

“Ok, do it.” She bared her neck to him and the slight sting was followed by a heaviness that filled her limbs and carried her off into darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

_ She was in the gym at Starfleet Academy, gloves on her hands and a sparring dummy in front of her. She threw a punch and the impact brought up a long-forgotten feeling of satisfaction. She struck the dummy again, landing blow after blow until she was out of breath and panting. _

_ “What did that poor dummy ever do to you, Kat? Does he truly deserve such an epic beatdown?” She whipped her head around to see the Lorca she remembered from their Academy years and her heart fluttered at the sight of him. A glance at a nearby mirror revealed her own youthful face, unlined and free of worry.   
_

_ “Would you rather I spar with you then? Do you deserve a beatdown? I think perhaps you do.” There was laughter in her voice, something she hadn’t heard in years. Or was it weeks? She wasn’t sure. _

_ “I’d rather you take your frustrations out on me in other ways, Kat. I’ve been told I’m a very effective stress reliever.” She rolled her eyes and grabbed his shoulders with her gloved hands as he moved in closer. She drank in the sight of his face and tried to memorize it, knowing it would fade soon enough.  _

_ “What’s wrong, Kat? I’m not a ghost, I promise.”  Except that he was, and the realization that she was dreaming made her want to make the most of this fleeting moment. _

_ “Then prove it!”  _

_ He flashed that heartbreakingly perfect grin again before leaning in and kissing her. She deepened the kiss, craving the slide of his tongue and the familiar taste of him. The chemistry they had back then was in turns addictive and achingly tender, and she missed it more than anything. She moved to gently touch his face and giggled upon realizing she still had her sparring gloves on. He slowly backed her against a wall, taking both of her gloved wrists in hand and pinning them firmly above her head. She moaned softly as he kissed the side of her neck in exactly the right spot. _

_ Just as she was slipping into a place of bliss, her surroundings changed. She found herself once again staring at the strange prison cell containing not-Gabriel and she growled in frustration. _

_ This time, he was the one shouting.  _

_ She saw him striking the invisible barrier between them, reaching out for her. She found herself shaking her head and shouting back, refusing to believe what she saw _

_ “You aren’t real! Gabriel is dead!”  He seemed to hear this and grew more desperate. _

_ “Kat! Please Kat, I’m alive! You have to believe me! I have no idea where I am, but I’ve been held here for months.” The look on his face made her want to cry, but she screamed back instead.  _

_ “Your ship was destroyed and everyone died! You are dead, Gabriel.” She covered her eyes but could still see him. He was closer now, and she could see the haggard look of his face, covered in several months of beard growth.  _

_ “Please help me, Kat! Tell them I’m still alive” _

_ “This isn’t real, you aren’t real. Please stop, I can’t take it anymore!” Her head started throbbing in pain and the image in front of her greyed out. _

She woke up with a scream, surrounded by darkness.

“Computer, lights!” she cried out, trying not to sound desperate. The illumination revealed her to be in the same medical suite, still surrounded by sensors and readout screens. She took a few slow breaths to steady her nerves and remind herself that she was safe. Her time on the  _ Sarcophagus _ was behind her and she would process those memories in time. Her immediate concern was the throbbing pain in her head, and she hit a button on a nearby panel to summon a medic.

While she waited, she wiggled her toes and flexed her feet. There were some residual prickles of pain, but otherwise she could move normally. She kicked her legs a few times and would have felt giddy about it if it weren’t for the piercing headache. The white-clad medic on duty rushed in and glanced at the monitors before placing a hypo to her neck.

“Welcome back, Admiral,” the nurse smiled, and she gratefully returned the smile as the pain quickly faded. “The spinal implant can cause headaches for the first few days as your nervous system adjusts to it, but you should acclimate to it soon. How are your legs?”

Kat stretched out her right leg and rotated her foot. “A few prickles of pain still, but at least I can move.” The nurse seemed pleased with this and brought her a glass of water, which she gratefully accepted. 

“About my request,” she began, and saw an apprehensive look cross the nurse’s face. “How long until I can be transported to  _ Discovery’s  _ destruction site?”. The nurse launched into a list of reasons why she couldn’t be moved from the hospital bed yet and Kat shook her head. “I don’t care if I can’t walk yet, put me in a wheelchair. I need to see this debris field.” The nurse rushed off and Kat sighed, closing her eyes and hoping she wouldn’t dream again.

It took three days, every favor she could cash in, and the kind assistance of Ambassador Sarek, but she finally found herself on a transport to the site where  _ Discovery _ was destroyed. She spent most of the journey staring out the window at the warp trails, sifting through her thoughts. She was in a wheelchair and accompanied by a medic, per the insistence of the starbase CMO. She mostly ignored the medic, an older gentleman with seemingly unlimited patience, unless she needed a hypo for the pain. He seemed content to sit with her in silence and she was grateful to not be forced into small talk.

Sarek sat at the other end of the transport, also silent and lost in thought. She didn’t expect sentimentality from a Vulcan, but suspected the ambassador’s reason for visiting the site of his daughter’s death went beyond pure logic. There was a heaviness to the silence that filled the small ship, the weight of sorrow and regret was tangible. She could feel it along her skin and it was unsettling.

She had experienced this type of phenomenon several times since getting the spinal implant and the doctor explained that synesthesia was a potential permanent side effect. She didn’t mind very much, it was a small price to pay for having her legs back. So far, she noticed certain letters and numbers had specific colors associated with them. She could also feel certain sounds along the back of her neck and now, it seemed, emotions as well.   


The shuttle dropped out of warp, shaking Kat from her thoughts. She met eyes with Sarek and he nodded, then signaled to the pilot to do a slow sweep of the area. Her heart rate sped up as the debris field came into view and she struggled to keep her emotions under control. As they neared the wreckage, she could make out fragmented pieces of bulkhead mixed with the dust of human remains. There were no bodies to recover and send to loved ones, just an endless mass of dust. 

She wasn’t sure if it was the synesthesia, but she could see clouds of color within the dust. They resembled the halos she sometimes saw when she had a migraine, but unevenly shaped. A thought crossed her mind that the implant was allowing her brain to pick out individual objects, but she brushed that aside. Colors or not, there was nothing left of the Discovery. A fragment of bulkhead inscribed with the characters “SS DISC” floated by, bringing a lump to her throat and tears to her eyes. 

She squeezed her eyes shut and willed away the burst of emotions that threatened to overflow. She could break down once she was alone but she refused to do so in front of a Vulcan, even one as kind as Sarek. After the shuttle finished its slow loop around the debris field, she nodded again and Sarek asked the pilot to return them to the starbase.

The journey back was just as silent and she let her mind lose itself in the bright patterns of the warp trails. Sarek sat beside her, eyes closed in meditation. At one point, pain started bursting across her skull and the medic quickly provided a hypo that muted it, but didn’t get rid of it entirely. The pain had a rippling quality that resembled ocean waves, and the sensation fascinated her. It provided a welcome distraction from the darker thoughts and feelings of regret that lurked in the back of her mind. 

“There is no shame in experiencing and expressing emotion, Admiral.” She startled at Sarek’s voice and looked up to see him staring at her intently. “From my understanding of human psychology, it is unhealthy for your species to suppress strong emotions. Am I correct?”

“You are correct, Ambassador,” she admitted with a sigh. She stared down for a moment at her hands, twisted together in her lap, then looked back up at Sarek. “I spent many years telling others just that, in a professional capacity. At the same time, I spent years training myself to keep my emotions at bay in front of others. As a Starfleet Officer, particularly as an Admiral, I have to keep myself together in situations where everyone else is panicking and falling apart. Even now, I can’t let go of that.”

“Do you allow yourself to express emotion in front of those whom you trust?” His voice was pure logic, but his face conveyed a degree of empathy she had never seen from a Vulcan.

“I do,” she admitted, “I used to, but I haven't in a long time.”

“You and I have not had many opportunities to interact, but would you assess that I have been trustworthy during those encounters?”

“I would,” she replied, already knowing where this line of inquiry was headed, but letting it continue.

“It would therefore be logical to conclude that you are safe to express your emotions without fear of judgement. While I am being presumptive in regards to Mr. Harvey,” he gestured towards the silent medic sitting by her, “his duty is to care for you as a patient. I assess that he would be in agreement regarding this matter.” The medic gave a curt nod before returning his gaze to the window.

Sarek’s display of empathy, logical as it was, was deeply moving and the tears she had been fighting back sprang to her eyes. She nodded, unable to speak, and let the sorrow cascade over her. She hadn’t cried after Gabriel pulled a phaser on her, or when she had been ambushed and captured. She hadn’t cried the entire time she had been in Klingon captivity, or when she woke up to find the Discovery had been destroyed. 

This time, she allowed herself to cry. Sarek and the medic moved away from her, trying to grant her some semblance of privacy, and she was grateful for this small gesture. The moment was cathartic and she felt the bitter, jagged edges inside her wash away. When she looked out the window again, the tears in her eyes blurred the warp trails into soft swells of colored light. 

She had never seen anything so beautiful. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took a few liberties with how synesthesia works, hence the Magical Realism tag...


	3. Chapter 3

_ It was a clear, chilly New Years Eve and she was on the roof of the physics building, staring up at the sky. She was bundled up in a warm coat and the blanket Gabriel brought, but her teeth were still chattering.  _

_ “This is a dumb idea, Gabriel. It’s freezing and we aren’t supposed to be up here.”  _

_ “Have some patience Kat, this will be well worth your time. In the meantime, this might help you warm up. It isn’t champagne, but I think you’ll like it.” He passed her a flask and she took a long swig, savoring the heat that bloomed in her belly. She curled up next to him, her head on his chest while he ran his hand through her hair. She usually found it relaxing when he played with her hair, but tonight she had a fierce desire for him to grab her by the hair and leave a hot trail of kisses and bites down her neck. She blushed at these thoughts, hoping he wouldn’t notice in the dark.  _

_ “I feel warmer already,” she said demurely, but the slow grin on his face revealed he wasn’t fooled.  _

_ “Oh Kat, I recognize that look a mile away. Here I was planning on a relaxing evening of watching the New Years fireworks and you look ready to jump my bones.” He tilted her chin up with a single finger and she smiled slyly.  _

_ “So what if I am, are you complaining?” _

_ “Absolutely not, but I thought you’d want to watch the fireworks firs…” She cut him off with a sudden kiss that took his breath away. When she pulled away for air, she moved to straddle him and gazed down hungrily. She bent her head, moving to kiss him, but then moved her lips to his ear instead. _

_ “Who needs fireworks,” she whispered, and gently ran her teeth along the edge of his ear. He shivered under her touch and then deftly flipped them over, settling between her thighs. As he kissed her deeply, she looked up to see the fireworks blooming across the sky. _

_ She knew what would happen next. When the scene morphed into the prison cell, she groaned in frustration and slammed her hands against the invisible barrier. _

_ “Why is my subconscious such a tease?!”  _

_ It was a rhetorical question but it got the attention of the not-Gabriel, who ran up to the barrier and yelled her name. She stared straight ahead, trying to tune out the sound of his pleas. It became increasingly difficult to do so as his words became drops of water, falling all around her. She tried to close her eyes and cover her ears but the sight and sound of him remained, so she started begging. _

_ “Please, just stop. Please stop. Stop!!”  _

_ The drops of water pooled around her feet and the room around her quickly filled with water. She pounded on the invisible barrier, trying to escape, but it didn’t budge. The water rose to her neck and she managed to scream his name before she was engulfed, water filling her lungs and muffling her cries. _

Katrina woke up screaming and gasping for air, trying to get a sense of the unfamiliar environment. Once she had the sense of mind to activate the lights, she recognized the temporary quarters she had been assigned on Starbase One. Exhausted but terrified of sleeping again, she used her cane to slowly walk to the replicator, her legs still feeling weak and shaky under her.

“Computer, English Breakfast Tea, extra strong.” 

“Caffeinated beverages are not recommended during sleep cycles,” chided the replicator. “Would you like some chamomile tea instead?”

“No, I do not want some chamomile tea. Shut the fuck up and give me the breakfast tea.”

The replicator must have sensed the urgency in her voice and produced the black tea with no further comment. Still in her sleep clothes, she sat down at her desk and picked up the first padd on the pile and started working. 

After an hour, the names of casualties from the latest attack swam in front of her eyes, the letters turning blue and floating off the screen. She pushed the padd away with an alarmed yelp and put her head down on her arms. She weeped softly for the recent casualties, for Gabriel, and for herself. She had a sickening feeling that this war would end badly.

 

As the war waged on for months, her fears only grew.

 

The not-Gabriel didn’t show up in her dreams every night, but it was often enough that she did everything in her power to escape him. She went without sleep until she was too exhausted to dream. She convinced the medical staff that she needed a particular type of sedative to sleep, one that kept her from dreaming. Eventually they caught on and cut her off, so she self-medicated with scotch and regretted it dearly upon waking.

When these unhealthy habits caught up to her and she once again found herself face to face with not-Gabriel, she ignored him completely. When he tried to convince her that he was real and being held prisoner by unknown foes, she chalked it up to a guilty subconscious, amplified by the spinal implant. 

Her waking hours were too filled with stress and devastation to dwell deeply on the dreams. As promised, a few weeks of rehab returned her ability to walk, albeit with the occasional prickle of pain. The synesthesia continued and took on new qualities, turning music into colorful landscapes and emotions into physical sensations. What few moments of joy she had were soft in texture and her near-constant state of grief took on an oppressive heaviness. Over time she learned to compartmentalize it, but the weight still lingered in the back of her mind and along the back of her neck.

One of the few things that brought her those soft feelings were the conversations she occasionally had with Ambassador Sarek. Their shared experience of grief had formed a bond that felt like friendship. She knew that she should be speaking with a therapist to process everything she had been through, but she found that she prefered these conversations instead. She told him about the dreams and he listened without judgment, never once shaming her for being so messily human. When he suggested that she try speaking with the not-Gabriel and listening to what he had to say, she considered it, but realized that she was afraid of what he might tell her. This didn’t help her sleep, but it felt good to unburden herself. 

It was late at night and she was working, trying to put off sleep, when she got the notification that a ship claiming to be the  _ USS Discovery _ had appeared in what was left of Federation space. She immediately contacted Sarek and the two of them met on a ship that was quickly re-routed to the signal coordinates. She paced back and forth the entirety of the trip while Sarek sat in grim silence. She couldn’t read his thoughts but assumed they were similar to hers, albeit without the messy emotions. Her hope that Gabriel and the rest of the crew were somehow still alive mingled with the fear that this was all an elaborate trap. The swirl of emotions were like sparks along her skin, and she felt on the verge of going up in flames at any second. 

Once they beamed onto the bridge of the  _ Discovery _ , time seemed to speed up. As each horrific revelation came to light, she shoved her emotions to the back of her mind to focus on the task at hand. She promised herself time to reflect once she made it through the never ending parade of loss. An outer display of stoicism was the one thing she had left to maintain some semblance of normality.

The loss of Starbase One broke her completely. 

The image on the view screen was clouded by the same swarm of colored halos she had seen in the ISS  _ Discovery _ ’s wreckage, and at many disaster sites since then. The sight of thousands of murdered souls staring at her and no one else sent her into a near catatonic state for a few moments. The bridge crew seemed startled at her reaction and she wished they could see what she saw, wished they could understand the severity of loss that surrounded them. She almost resented them and their brief excursion to the mirror universe. As horrific as their experience sounded, it paled in comparison to what had transpired in their absence. 

Once she was able to drag herself into the Captain’s quarters, she allowed herself the breakdown she was denied on bridge. She was vaguely aware that Sarek would approve of this releasing of emotions, but the grief and loss were overwhelming to the point of being physically painful. She sat on the floor in the corner of the room, unable to go anywhere near the bed, and shook with sobs for what felt like hours. Her thoughts were out of focus and nothing registered but pain and the need to release it. 

Completely drained and exhausted, she eventually managed to drag herself to the sofa. As she drifted off to sleep in a haze, she had answers and more questions. There was only one person, real or otherwise, who could answer them. 

_ This time there was no pleasant memory to ease her way into the dream. The prison cell appeared before her and she walked up the barrier to peer inside. She saw him curled up on the bed, ignoring her. When she told the others that her Gabriel was dead, she knew in her heart that he wasn’t. There was no way to articulate why she knew without sounding delusional, so she had kept her mouth shut while exchanging a meaningful look with Sarek. She decided to finally take her friend’s advice. _

_ “Gabriel,” she whispered, afraid to startle him. She saw him open an eye and look in her direction before turning over the face the wall. _

_ “Please, Gabriel. I...I know it’s you. I know everything now, and I’m so sorry I didn’t believe you.” _

_ He slowly sat up, looking at her suspiciously. When she didn’t flinch or look away, he stood up and walked over to her. Seeing him up close, the toil this universe had taken was evident. He was thin and pale, the light in his eyes faded. Based on the timeline the Discovery crew gave her, she estimated Gabriel had been in the Mirror Universe for more than a year.  He looked so fragile and she wondered if he had been in captivity the entire time or if he had witnessed more of the horrors of that strange and brutal world. _

_ “Why now, Kat? You’ve been calling me a figment of your guilty subconscious for months now, what changed your mind?” The look he gave her was more exhausted than accusatory, but she still felt the sting from it.  _

_ “The man who died wasn’t you,” she admitted, feeling her face burning. “He was from this place,” she gestured around her, “you switched places and he impersonated you. The details are excruciating, but long story short, he’s dead and you are still trapped in his universe.” _

_ He nodded, looking more tired than surprised. “Of all the possible reasons I’ve thought of for the lack of rescue attempts, that one is far from the most absurd. This explains why you kept saying I was dead.” She looked down, ashamed. _

_ “I believe you, Kat. You might very well be a figment of my own guilty subconscious, but after all this time you’ve been my one constant. You haunt my dreams and drive me mad, but you keep returning. Nothing else has stayed with me in this place.” She felt immensely guilty for trying to shut him out for so long. _ __   
_   
_ __ “Are we both dreaming?” 

_ “As far as I know, we must be. Either that or it's some sort of linked hallucination.”  _

_ “The other dreams, the nice ones that kept getting interrupted, were those coming from me or you?” She wondered if the spinal implant had something to do with this joined dreaming. _

_ “Either? Both? It's hard to differentiate. With all of this time alone, I know my thoughts have strayed to certain memories so maybe the dreams are coming from those.” He looked slightly sheepish and she couldn’t help smiling just a little.  _

_ “It’s so strange here, no one talks to me and the few people I’ve seen seem terrified of me, which is baffling. Perhaps it is the other me they are so afraid of.” _

_ “That would make sense, he was nothing like you. He was…” she hesitated, not yet ready to go into detail, “not a good man.” _

_ He didn’t ask her to elaborate and she was grateful for that. She would tell him the rest soon enough, when they were both ready for it. A sharp pang hit her when she realized he didn’t know the fate of the Buran and that she would have to tell him. _

_ She placed her hand against the barrier, wishing she could touch him. As he placed his own hand on his side of the barrier, she felt the resistance give way. The energy force dividing them softened and she made a little noise of shock as she felt her skin against his. She pushed further and her hand passed through the barrier, grasping his tightly. They stared at each other without speaking as she pressed her way past the force field and into his cell. Once she was through, he wrapped his arms around her tightly and she sobbed into his chest.  _

_ “I’ll never leave you again,” she whispered. It might have just been a dream, a strange linked dream they both shared, but he felt so real. She looked up at his face, covered in a unkempt beard, and smiled. As she moved to kiss him, she was startled by a sudden loud noise. _

“Nooo!!!” Kat woke up with a yelp of loss, tears pricking her eyes in frustration. She straightened the sleeping clothes she had somehow managed to change into and made her way to the door, seething with anger at the interruption. Her mood was somewhat soothed when she saw it was Specialist Burnham, but still snapped at the young woman.

“I don’t suppose I have to tell you it’s the middle of the night.” Or that she had just interrupted the most important dream of Kat’s life. 

“I have a proposal.” The look on Burnham’s face told her this was important, and she hoped it would be worth the interruption. After looking Burnham up and down, she nodded. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are some brief references to the tie-in novel Drastic Measures in this chapter, and a little bit of smut...

Katrina’s  temporary office had a magnificent view of rain-drenched Paris, which she admired as she sat alone on the couch, slowly drinking some very good scotch that had mysteriously appeared on her desk. She assumed it was either Burnham or Sarek. Probably Burnham, as her father was not prone to sentimentality. Kat felt a little guilty drinking it alone. At the very least she should have invited Burnham in for a drink and properly thanked her for saving her skin twice.

She owed a lot to Burnham, and restoring the Commander’s rank was the very least she could do. She wanted very badly to put the entire ugly war behind her, but knew she would be spending years picking up the pieces, both professionally and personally. The degree of devastation profoundly changed their sector of the galaxy and everyone in it.

Trying to move away from those morose thoughts, she took another sip and checked her chronometer, sighing when she realized it would be another hour until sleep and seeing Gabriel again. In just the past few days, they had synchronized their timing across universes so that they could sleep simultaneously and maximize their time together. They’d also had some difficult conversations involving everything that transpired in his absence.

He’d wept openly when she told him about the _Buran_ , and she could do nothing more than hold him, her own tears dampening his shoulder. He returned the favor when she gave him heartbreaking details of his double’s deception and the near-deadly consequences. Over the past nine months she had been too busy fighting a desperate war to deal with the psychological wounds left by her experience. Other than a few vague references in her talks with Sarek, she had told no one. Of course she understood the irony in that, and Gabriel became the therapist she needed.

_“How long were you there?” They sat on her old academy dorm bed, her legs in his lap as he leaned on the stack of pillows she used to keep there. They had quickly realized they could change their surroundings in this strange dreamscape with just their thoughts, and they found this spot to be comforting._

_“I lost track of time after awhile, but they tell me it was close to six weeks. That’s nothing compared to you, but it certainly felt like forever.” He squeezed her hand and she squeezed back._

_“Did they…?” The question hung in the air and she answered without hesitation._

_“Torture me? What Klingon would pass up the opportunity to torture a Starfleet admiral?” She made a noise somewhere between laughing and crying, very aware that her flippancy was doing a poor job at masking the anxiety those memories caused._

_“They started with stress positions and the occasional beating, probably thinking I’d crack right away. When that didn’t work, they used electric rods. I read later they were called pain sticks and that Klingons use them in rites of passage to transform pain into strength.”_

_“It sounds like that’s what you did, Kat. You’ve been transforming pain into strength for as long as I’ve known you and it would take more than a few cattle prods to change that.” He was right, she admitted. The pain sticks had done nothing more than piss her off and the interrogations stopped shortly afterwards. Until L’Rell showed up._

_“What about you?” She wanted to change the subject but was also genuinely curious._

_“There’s been nothing, if you can believe it. I can scarcely believe it myself, based on what you’ve said about this universe. I’ve heard the sounds of others being tortured, sometimes killed. I’ve even seen a guard executed for insubordination right in front of my cell, but they haven't touched me. Unless you consider solitary confinement for more than a year to be torture.”_

_“I do. Humans need social interaction and physical contact. To be deprived of that can cause a great deal of suffering.” She squeezed his hand tighter._

_“I’m suffering a lot less now, thanks to you.”_

_“Good, I’m glad. I just wish I could do more.”_

_“I know.”_

They still had no idea what was causing the shared dreams and how they were even possible. She spent most of her free moments researching the phenomenon and couldn’t find any leads. There were plenty of spiritual beliefs regarding shared dreaming and astral projection among the humanoid races of the Federation, but no thorough research or concrete evidence. She also researched the spinal implant, but the synesthesia was the only unusual side effect on record.

Kat stared out the window, willing the time to pass more quickly. She wanted to know what it all meant, why she and Gabriel could communicate this way and why now. Was she meant to rescue him from his unknown prison or was it all just a strange cosmic party trick?

The raindrops streaming down the surface of the glass blurred in the light and formed bright patterns. After months of regarding the synesthesia as a minor annoyance, she had begun to see it as the gift it was. It added a new layer of beauty and meaning to the world around her, something she wished to capture and share with others. She was half-tempted to take up painting again, an idle pursuit from years ago, to see if she could capture what she saw. Based on her current workload, she doubted she would have time for at least another decade.

Checking her chronometer again for the dozenth time, she made her way to the sleeping quarters, which were downright luxurious. She felt a bit guilty for having been assigned them, knowing they should have gone to someone higher up than her on the food chain. The devastating loss of Starbase One had all but left her the apex predator of Starfleet, and she still wasn’t used to it. She did appreciate the giant bathtub though, and enjoyed a long soak in lavender scented water. She couldn’t remember the last time she had taken a few moments for self care and vowed to do better. Someday. When she had time.

When it occurred to her that her shared dreams with Gabriel were a form of self-care, she felt lighter and something akin to joy skittered up her spine with an effervescent sensation.

She took every possible precaution to prevent any sort of interruption, from blackout curtains to a do-not-disturb status on all coms. She considered pasting a “GO AWAY” sign on the door but figured it would be overkill. Once in bed, she went through the progressive relaxation and deep breathing exercises she had taught so many others, until she finally drifted off.

_“There you are, I was wondering what was taking you so long. I thought maybe you got caught up in the festivities after the ceremony.” The look on his face made her heart beat faster and she tried to mask it with her usual stern pose, hand on hips and head cocked slightly to the left._

_“You really think I’d rather shmooze with the remnants of the Federation’s elite than spend time with you? I’ll have you know I spent the last hour alone, drinking scotch and watching the rain.”_

_“That’s my Kat!” he laughed. “Remember when we blew off the reception at my promotion ceremony to drink that stolen bottle of wine on the roof?”_

_“I believe we also stole a cheese and cracker plate to go with it. Best party I’ve ever been to.”_

_This time she approached him and he folded her into his arms, touching his forehead to hers. She closed her eyes briefly at the sensation, and then opened them to behold the magnificent blue eyes staring back at her._

_“Where should we go tonight? I’ll let you pick.”_

_“Iceland,” she said without hesitation._

_“Good choice,” he said as the scene around them morphed into a black sand beach with light snow falling around them._

_“It’s one of my favorite memories,” she said softly, taking his hand. “It kept me from falling apart completely while I was a POW. No matter how much pain I was in, if I could get myself here mentally, I knew I would be ok.” This was her first time telling him this and he looked floored by it._

_“Oh Kat,” was all he managed to say, but she could read the meaning in his tone. While they kept the terms of endearment to a minimum between them, she knew he cared deeply about her. No matter how many times she told him he was not responsible for the actions of his double, it tore him up with guilt to hear of her suffering._

_“The Southern Coast is just as beautiful as I remembered it,” she sighed, tugging him by the hand. “Come on, let’s walk. You could use the fresh air.” She knew the fresh air and exercise were all in their heads, but got the sense they helped him a great deal._

_They walked along the beach, marveling at the stark beauty of the rock formations and black volcanic sand. They spoke little, both lost in their thoughts. She would occasionally squeeze his hand and whisper “you are safe” when his facial expression revealed his thoughts had gone to dark places. He would smile softly and squeeze her hand back in reply. As the sky started to darken, they found themselves back in her academy dorm room, spooned together on the narrow bed._

_“Sorry, I think this was my idea,” he muttered._

_“Mine too, actually,” she replied, turning in his arms to grin at him. She kissed him tenderly and he hesitated before kissing her back._

_“Please don’t treat me like glass, Gabriel,” she sighed, disappointment in her voice. Other than the few memories that surfaced when the shared dreams first started, their interactions had been affectionate but chaste. She knew why, appreciated why, but was starting to get frustrated._

_“I won’t, I promise, but I need to show you something first. Before I get too preoccupied to remember,” he said, kissing her lightly for emphasis. At her raised eyebrow, he took off the shirt of his prison uniform and fumbled around with the lining. After a moment, he extracted a tiny scroll of paper with great care. Her eyes widened as he placed it in the palm of her hand and carefully unrolled it._

_It was worn and the text was faded with age, but she gasped in recognition as she read the words. “_ Hate is never conquered by hate. Hate is conquered by love _."_

_“You have this with you? Not just here in the dream, but in your prison cell?” He nodded slowly and she felt her heart clench with warring emotions. More than ten years ago, Gabriel had been in love with a woman named Balayna while he was stationed at an outpost on Tarsus IV. She had given him the cookie this fortune was from and it was the one piece of her he had left after she and so many others had been senselessly murdered._

_In the dark days that followed that event, Gabriel stayed with Kat as she helped put the broken pieces of her friend back together. She gave him the space to process his emotions while carefully coaxing him away from the anger that threatened to swallow him. It was Kat’s  idea for him to keep the fortune as a way to remember Balayna and remind him not to succumb his own darkness. That he still had the fortune with him brought tears to her eyes and she wasn’t sure why._

_“This is what has kept me from falling apart all of these months, Kat. It’s not just my memory of her, but my memories of you. You imparted this lesson and I’ve kept it to heart ever since. I’ve wanted to rage against my fate here, to punish myself for being captured, but I haven't. These words on this tiny scrap of paper have kept me sane and I have you to thank.” At a loss for words, her tears began in earnest._

_“Shhhh, Kat,” he soothed, wrapping his arms around her. “I’ve got you,” he murmured as she buried her face in his chest and he rubbed soothing circles along her back. His touch was familiar and it grounded her in the moment. She looked up at him and smiled, feeling lighter._

_“You saved me, Kat. I always knew you would.”  
_

_This time he kissed her in earnest, drinking hungrily from her lips. She moaned into the kiss, wrapping her arms around him, needing to get as close as possible. On a whim, she concentrated intently on the thought of the two of them naked, and their clothes suddenly vanished. He grinned at her before kissing his way slowly down her body, her fingers lightly gripping the back of his head._

_She hissed at the sharp pleasure of his tongue on her, whispering to him that it felt like a violin solo. He moved slowly, mapping out her body as she named each color, each sound the sensation invoked. When he moved back up to kiss her, she tasted herself on him, knowing it was no trick of her mind. Impatient from his slow teasing, she moved astride him, lowering herself onto him with a satisfied moan._

_She guided his hands to her breasts as she moved her hips, matching her rhythm with his. He knew exactly how to touch her, how to ratchet up the intensity of his caresses a little at a time until she could barely stand it. She didn’t know if it was the dreamscape or her synesthesia or the months of pent-up lust, but his touch completely overwhelmed her. Words left her lips unbidden, a litany of “please” and “fuck” and “yes, like that,” chanted like a prayer. He deftly flipped them over, shifting his hips and hiking one of her legs up higher so that each thrust hit just the right spot. This sent her careening over the edge and as she rode out the pleasure, she distantly heard his voice crying out roughly._

_She was still trembling as she curled into him, completely spent and wrung out by the intensity of her climax. “Well, that answers that question.”_

_“What question?”_

_“If sex in this weird dream space is as good as actual sex.”_

_“And the verdict?”_

_“It felt like the ocean and fireworks at the same time,” she said, sighing happily._

_“I guess I still have it then, good to know.” She rolled her eyes at his bragging but smiled at the same time._

_“What happens now?” she wondered, as he wrapped his arms around her. She wanted to preserve this moment forever, knowing she would soon have to leave him again._

_“I don’t know, Kat,” he sighed, bringing his lips gently to her forehead. “There has to be a reason for this, for us finding each other here.”_

_“I’ll keep searching for an explanation, I will never stop looking for you, Gabriel.”_

_He smiled back at her, and then in an instant his smile turned into a look of shock and pain. He yelled out her name before dissolving into nothing, leaving her her utterly alone._

“Gabriel!”

She woke up in her darkened quarters, screaming for him as she reached across the empty bed. Fear gripped her gut, knowing that something had dragged him out of the dream and that he was in some unknowable danger. At a loss of what to do, she ordered the lights on at 50% and started to rub the sleep from her eyes. It was then that she saw the slip of paper in her hand.

“Computer, lights on full,” she ordered, as she uncurled the fortune against her palm. As she marveled at it, unable to comprehend how she pulled it from the dream, the letters began to rise from the paper, hovering in front of her. She watched in awe as each character morphed, transforming into lines and numbers. Her synesthesia had let her see and experience some extraordinary things, but nothing like this.

“How?” she asked of no one as the lines drifted over to her desk, swimming through the air like a strange school of fish. She jumped up and followed them, pulling up the holo projector when she got to her desk. She wasn’t sure what she was meant to do, but began copying each line and number onto a padd, watching them pop up on the projector. She rushed to keep up as the lines kept moving and changing shape.

The longer she worked, the more familiar the projection became. It was a star chart that showed pocket alternate universes, similar to the one the Mirror Gabriel had built. This one was different in that a band of bright red lines circled an unfamiliar moon. The longer she stared at it, the brighter the moon became. The lines of light danced around it, changing color as they begged for her attention.

She knew exactly what they were showing her, and nodded her understanding. The lines seemed to acknowledge this as they drifted back to the slip of paper she had placed on the desk, morphing once more into letters. As they sunk back into the paper, they glowed their message before fading.

“Hate is never conquered by hate. Hate is conquered by love,” she whispered.

She stared once more at the star chart she had created with the help of an impossible phenomenon she still didn’t understand. The moon glowed at her, and she could hear Gabriel’s voice thanking her for saving him. She took a few deep breaths to ground herself, knowing that it would be difficult to convince anyone that what she had just witnessed was real. Any rational person would call it a hallucination or worse, a delusion.

Then she remembered the most rational person she knew had believed her when she told him of her dreams. She immediately dialed up Ambassador Sarek, waiting impatiently for him to respond to her hail. She let out a deep breath when he finally appeared in front of her, calmly taking in her disheveled appearance.

“Sarek,” she said with a hopeful look on her face. “I think I found him!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for taking the time to read this odd little story, I truly appreciate it. I know I have set things up for a continuation, but I'm still looking for just the right inspiration for the next chapter of this saga. Any suggestions are welcome!


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